Method and apparatus of verifying usability of biological characteristic image

ABSTRACT

A method and an apparatus of verifying a usability of a biological characteristic image are disclosed. The method includes: receiving a biological characteristic image uploaded by a terminal; verifying a digital watermark included in the biological characteristic image; and if verification is passed, determining that the biological characteristic image is usable. The technical solution of the present disclosure can ensure that a biological characteristic image generated in a device can only be used in that device, thus avoiding a security problem which may be caused by the theft and interception of a biological characteristic image of a user when storing or transmitting the image using a biological recognition technology.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATION

This application claims foreign priority to Chinese Patent ApplicationNo. 201410148019.0 filed on Apr. 14, 2014, entitled “Method andApparatus of Verifying Usability of Biological Characteristic Image”,which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to the field of Internet technology, andin particular, to methods and apparatuses of verifying usability of abiological characteristic image.

BACKGROUND

When performing a recognition of biological characteristics (whichinclude, but are not limited to, biological characteristics such as afinger print, a palm print, an eye print, an iris, a palm vein, or ahuman face, etc.), existing technologies need to record or transmit abiological characteristic image of a user. In order to prevent abiological characteristic image that is stored locally in a wirelessdevice or transmitted to a server from illegal use and masquerading asan identity of a user using the image by a thief, the existingtechnologies generally perform an encryption on the biologicalcharacteristic image. However, after obtaining an encrypted sample ofthe biological characteristic image, the thief may perform cracking bybrute force via a technical means. Because the biological characteristicof the user cannot be changed, the server cannot report stolenbiological characteristic information, and the cracked biologicalcharacteristic image may be used by the thief to conduct fraudrepeatedly in various scenarios. In addition, a file size of abiological characteristic image is generally large. Repeated encryptionand decryption will increase a computation cost of a user device anddecrease the user experience.

In view of the above, a solution that performs protection and usabilityverification of a biological characteristic image is desired.

SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify all key featuresor essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intendedto be used alone as an aid in determining the scope of the claimedsubject matter. The term “techniques,” for instance, may refer todevice(s), system(s), method(s) and/or computer-readable instructions aspermitted by the context above and throughout the present disclosure.

A goal of the present disclosure is to provide a method and an apparatusof verifying a usability of a biological characteristic image in orderto solve a security problem due to stealing and interception of abiological characteristic image of a user when the image is stored ortransmitted by a biological recognition technique in the existingtechnologies.

One aspect of the present disclosure provides a method of verifying ausability of a biological characteristic image, which includes:receiving a biological characteristic image uploaded by a terminal;verifying a digital watermark included in the biological characteristicimage; and determining that the biological characteristic image isusable upon successful verification.

Another aspect of the present disclosure further provides an apparatusof verifying a usability of a biological characteristic image, whichincludes: a receiving module used for receiving a biologicalcharacteristic image uploaded by a terminal; a verification module usedfor verifying a digital watermark included in the biologicalcharacteristic image; and a determination module used for determiningthat the biological characteristic image is usable upon successfulverification.

Another aspect of the present disclosure further provides a method ofverifying a usability of a biological characteristic image, whichincludes: acquiring a biological characteristic image that is generatedby or stored in a terminal; verifying a digital watermark included inthe biological characteristic image; and determining that the biologicalcharacteristic image is usable in the terminal upon successfulverification.

Another aspect of the present disclosure further provides a terminal ofverifying a usability of a biological characteristic image, whichincludes: an acquisition module used for obtaining a biologicalcharacteristic image that is generated by or stored in the terminal; averification module used for verifying a digital watermark included inthe biological characteristic image; and a determination module used fordetermining that the biological characteristic image is usable in theterminal upon successful verification.

Compared with existing technologies, the technical solution of thepresent disclosure can ensure that a biological characteristic imagegenerated in a device can be used on that device only, therebypreventing a security problem due to stealing or interception of apersonal biological characteristic image of a user when the image isstored or transmitted by a biological recognition technique. Even if thebiological characteristic image is acquired illegally, the acquirerstill cannot masquerade as an identity of the user using the image toperform an authorization or authentication fraud in a server.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings described herein provide further understandingof the present disclosure and are construed as a part of the presentdisclosure. Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure anddescriptions thereof are used to explain the present disclosure, and donot impose any improper limitations to the present disclosure. In thedrawings:

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a method of verifying a usability of abiological characteristic image according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of generating a biological characteristic imageincluding a digital watermark according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart of verifying a digital watermark included in abiological characteristic image according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a structural diagram of an apparatus of verifying a usabilityof a biological characteristic image according to an embodiment of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a method of verifying a usability of abiological characteristic image according to another aspect of thepresent disclosure.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of verifying a digital watermark included in abiological characteristic image according to an embodiment of anotheraspect of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is a structural diagram of a terminal of verifying a usability ofa biological characteristic image according to another aspect of thepresent disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The main idea of the present disclosure lies in that: when a userbiological characteristic (or biometric) image is collected andgenerated, after a digital watermark is embedded into a raw biologicalcharacteristic image using a digital watermark technology, an acquiredbiological characteristic image including the digital watermark islocally stored in a terminal or uploaded to a server for storage, andthe terminal or the server may determine whether the biologicalcharacteristic image is usable by verifying the digital watermarkincluded in the biological characteristic image, in order to avoid asecurity problem which may be caused by stealing or interception of thebiological characteristic image when the image is stored or transmitted.

In order to make the objectives, technical solutions and advantages ofthe present disclosure more clearly, the technical solutions of thepresent disclosure are described clearly and completely through specificembodiments and corresponding accompanying drawings of the presentdisclosure. Apparently, the described embodiments are merely a part andnot all of embodiments of the present disclosure. Based on theembodiments in the present disclosure, all other embodiments obtained byone of ordinary skill in the art without making any creative effortsshall belong to the scope of protection of the present disclosure.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a method ofverifying a usability of a biological characteristic image is provided.

Referring to FIG. 1, FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a method of verifying ausability of a biological characteristic image according to anembodiment of the present disclosure. The method may be applicable to:when a user uses a biometric authentication product (for example, anapplication having a biometric verification function or providing abiometric verification service) and uploads a biological characteristicimage that is used for performing a biometric verification to a serverfor verifying a usability of the biological characteristic image in theserver. For example, when using a biological characteristic forverification, a user generally desires to upload and store an image ofthe biological characteristic in a server in order to facilitatedifferent terminal devices (for example, a mobile terminal such as amobile phone or a tablet computer, etc.) to perform operations such asidentity verification and authentication using the image of thebiological characteristic stored in the server. When performing abiometric verification, operations, such as characteristic extractionand comparison, etc., may be performed on a user biologicalcharacteristic image stored at the server and a biologicalcharacteristic (such as a finger print, a human face, etc.) of a usercollected in real time to verify an identity of the user.

As shown in FIG. 1, a biological characteristic image that is uploadedby a terminal is received at S101. The biological characteristic imagemay include a digital watermark. Prior to uploading the biologicalcharacteristic image, the terminal may embed a digital watermark into anoriginal biological characteristic image of a user that is collected togenerate a biological characteristic image including the digitalwatermark.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the digitalwatermark may be embedded into the biological characteristic image ofthe user collected by the terminal using a digital watermark embeddedalgorithm to generate the biological characteristic image including thedigital watermark. A digital watermark to be embedded may be generatedbased on device identification information and/or user identificationinformation of the terminal.

In order to describe a process of generating a biological characteristicimage including a digital watermark in more detail, FIG. 2 may bereferenced for detailed description. Referring to FIG. 2, FIG. 2 is aflowchart illustrating a procedure of generating a biologicalcharacteristic image that includes a digital watermark according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

Generation of a biological characteristic image that includes a digitalwatermark may include the following method blocks:

Block S201 obtains an original biological characteristic image throughcollection of a biological characteristic of a user by a terminal.Specifically, the biological characteristic of the user is collected viaa collection device (for example, a camera) of the terminal. Thecollected biological characteristic may include, but is not limited to,a finger print, a palm print, an eye print, an iris, a palm vein, ahuman face, and the like.

Block S202 generates a digital watermark that is to be embedded based ondevice identification information and/or user identification informationof the terminal.

The device identification information may be generated by performing acomputation on device information of the terminal using a particularHash encryption algorithm (for example, Secure Hash Algorithm SHA-2).The device information of the terminal may include, but is not limitedto, any one or more of a Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI),device/processor type information, operating system version information,and a mobile subscriber identification number (IMSI) of the terminal.The device identification information of the terminal may be generatedby the server which obtains the device information uploaded by the user,performs a Hash encryption algorithm on the device information, deliversthe information to the terminal, and stores the information therein.Alternatively, the device identification information of the terminal maybe generated by the terminal which performs a particular Hash encryptionalgorithm on the device information, and then uploads the information tothe server for storage. The user identification information may beaccount information of the user of the terminal, for example, accountinformation (or referred to as a member ID) that is registered andstored in the server when the user of the terminal uses an application(for example, a client application) that provides a biometricverification service.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal may be directly used as digital watermark information thatis to be embedded. A digital watermark embedding algorithm is used toembed the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal into the original biologicalcharacteristic image. In order to improve the security, a specificprocessing may be performed on the device identification informationand/or the user identification information of the terminal to acquirethe digital watermark that is to be embedded. For example,transformation or processing such as randomization, chaotization,frequency spread, and encryption may be performed on the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal, and data acquired after the transformation or processing(such as a randomized sequence, a character, or an image, etc.) is usedas the digital watermark to be embedded.

Block S203 embeds the digital watermark that is to be embedded into theoriginal biological characteristic image using a digital watermarkembedding algorithm to generate a biological characteristic image thatincludes the digital watermark.

The used digital watermark embedding algorithm may include: a spatialdomain algorithm, a transform domain algorithm, a compressed domainalgorithm, or an NEC algorithm. In an embodiment, the present disclosureuses the NEC algorithm to embed the digital watermark into the originalbiological characteristic image to acquire a biological characteristicimage that includes the digital watermark. The device identificationinformation and/or the user identification information of the terminalmay be used as a secret key for generating a pseudorandom sequence inthe NEC algorithm.

The process of generating a biological characteristic image including adigital watermark is described above with reference to FIG. 2. Back toFIG. 1, verification is performed for the digital watermark that isincluded in the biological characteristic image at S102.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the verificationmay be performed for the digital watermark that is included in thebiological characteristic based on the device identification informationand/or the user identification information of the terminal.

In order to describe the process of verification in more detail, adetailed description of the process of verification may be made withreference to FIG. 3. FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure ofperforming verification for a digital watermark included in a biologicalcharacteristic image according to an embodiment of the presentdisclosure.

At S301, the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal is obtained.

Specifically, when uploading the biological characteristic image, theterminal may further upload the device identification information and/orthe user identification information of the terminal at the same time.Alternatively, after receiving the biological characteristic imageuploaded by the terminal, the server may search for deviceidentification information that corresponds to the user identificationinformation and is stored in the server based on the user identificationinformation (user account information) of the terminal.

At S302, the digital watermark is extracted from the biologicalcharacteristic image to acquire the device identification informationand/or the user identification information from which the digitalwatermark is generated.

As described above, the digital watermark that is included in thebiological characteristic image is generated based on the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal, and is embedded into the original biologicalcharacteristic image using the digital watermark embedding algorithm.Therefore, the digital watermark may be extracted from the biologicalcharacteristic image using a digital watermark extraction algorithm(which is generally an inverse process of the digital watermarkembedding algorithm), and the device identification information and/oruser identification information used for generating the digitalwatermark is acquired from the extracted digital watermark.

At S303, the device identification information and/or the useridentification information that is used for generating the digitalwatermark is compared with the device identification information and/orthe user identification information of the terminal.

Specifically, a comparison is made as to whether the deviceidentification information and/or user identification information thatis used for generating the digital watermark and the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal are identical. If identical, a determination may be madethat the device identification information and/or user identificationinformation that is used for generating the digital watermark matcheswith the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal.

At S304, if matched, a determination is made that the verification ispassed.

If the device identification information and/or user identificationinformation that is used for generating the digital watermark isidentical with the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal, this indicates that thebiological characteristic image is generated by using the deviceidentification information and the user identification information ofthe terminal which uploads the biological characteristic image, and adetermination may be made that the verification is passed.

The process of verification is described above with reference to FIG. 3.Back to FIG. 1, a determination is made that the biologicalcharacteristic image is usable upon successful verification at S103.

Specifically, if the verification is passed, this indicates that thebiological characteristic image is generated by using the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal which uploads the biological characteristic image. In otherwords, the biological characteristic image uploaded by the terminal hasa reliable source, and may be used as a sample for performing abiometric verification. For example, characteristic extraction isperformed on the biological characteristic image to generate acharacteristic template for performing an identity verification of theuser, etc. If the verification fails, i.e., the biologicalcharacteristic image is not generated by using the device identificationinformation and/or the user identification information of the terminalwhich uploads the biological characteristic image, this indicates thatthe biological characteristic image may be acquired by the terminal viaother unauthorized methods, and thus storage or further processing ofthe biological characteristic image will be rejected.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, before performingverification for a digital watermark, a detection of whether a digitalwatermark exists in the biological characteristic image may further beincluded, in which a digital watermark detection algorithm may be usedto detect whether a digital watermark exists in the received biologicalcharacteristic image. If a digital watermark exists in the biologicalcharacteristic image, the method block of watermark extraction andverification (i.e., S102 in FIG. 1) is performed. If no digitalwatermark exists in the biological characteristic image, a determinationis made that the biological characteristic image is not usable.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, when the terminalof the user which stores his/her biological characteristic image islost, or when the user or the server suspects that a biologicalcharacteristic image stored or used by the user at a certain terminalhas the possibility of being intercepted or stolen, such biologicalcharacteristic image may be reported as being lost in the server, forexample, the device identification information of the terminal may beadded into a blacklist in the server.

The present disclosure further provides an apparatus of verifying ausability of a biological characteristic image.

FIG. 4 schematically shows a structural diagram of an apparatus ofverifying a usability of a biological characteristic image according toan embodiment of the present disclosure. According to an embodiment ofthe present disclosure, the apparatus 400 includes: a receiving module401, a verification module 402 and a determination module 403.

The receiving module 401 may be used for receiving a biologicalcharacteristic image that is uploaded by a terminal.

The verification module 402 may be used for verifying a digitalwatermark included in the biological characteristic image.

The determination module 403 may be used for determining that thebiological characteristic image is usable upon successful verification.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the digitalwatermark may be generated based on device identification informationand/or user identification information of the terminal.

The device identification information is generated based on the deviceinformation of the terminal using a Hash algorithm. The deviceinformation of the terminal includes: any one or more of a MobileEquipment Identity, a device/processor model number, operating systemversion information, and a mobile subscriber identity of the terminal.

According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the verificationmodule 402 may further be used for verifying the digital watermarkincluded in the biological characteristic image based on the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal.

The verification module 402 may further include: an acquisitionsub-module 404, an extraction sub-module 405, a comparison sub-module406 and a determination sub-module 407.

The acquisition sub-module 404 may be used for obtaining the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal.

The extraction sub-module 405 may be used for extracting the digitalwatermark from the biological characteristic image to acquire the deviceidentification information and/or user identification information thatis used for generating the digital watermark.

The comparison sub-module 406 may be used for comparing the deviceidentification information and/or user identification information thatis used for generating the digital watermark with the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal.

The determination sub-module 407 may be used for determining that theverification is passed upon successful matching.

According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the apparatus 400may further include: a detection module 408. The detection module 408may be used for examining whether a digital watermark exists in thebiological characteristic image. The determination module may further beused for determining that the biological characteristic image is notusable if no digital watermark exists in the biological characteristicimage.

Furthermore, the apparatus 400 may be implemented as one or morecomputing devices, which may include one or more processors (CPU) 409,an input/output interface 410, a network interface 411, and memory 412.

The memory 412 may include a form of a computer readable media such asvolatile memory, random access memory (RAM) and/or non-volatile memory,such as read-only memory (ROM) or flash RAM. The memory 412 is anexample of a computer readable media.

The computer readable media may include a permanent or non-permanenttype, a removable or non-removable media, which may achieve storage ofinformation using any method or technology. The information may includea computer-readable instruction, a data structure, a program module orother data. Examples of computer storage media include, but not limitedto, phase-change memory (PRAM), static random access memory (SRAM),dynamic random access memory (DRAM), other types of random-access memory(RAM), read-only memory (ROM), electronically erasable programmableread-only memory (EEPROM), quick flash memory or other internal storagetechnology, compact disk read-only memory (CD-ROM), digital versatiledisc (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassette tape, magneticdisk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any othernon-transmission media, which may be used to store information that maybe accessed by a computing device. As defined herein, the computerreadable media does not include transitory media, such as modulated datasignals and carrier waves.

The memory 412 may include program module 413 and program data 414. Theforegoing modules and/or sub-modules may be included in the memory 412,e.g., program module 413. Details of these modules and sub-modules maybe found in the foregoing description and are therefore not redundantlydescribed herein.

As functions implemented by the apparatus of this embodiment basicallycorrespond to the method embodiments as shown in FIGS. 1-3, andtherefore, those not described in detail in this embodiment may bereferenced to related descriptions in the above embodiments, and are notredundantly described herein.

In another aspect, the present disclosure further provides a method ofverifying a usability of a biological characteristic image. The methodmay be applicable to verification of the usability of a biologicalcharacteristic image, i.e., ensuring that the biological characteristicimage may be used only in a terminal which generates the image when auser uses a biometric authentication product (for example, anapplication having a biometric verification function or providing abiometric verification service), when the terminal generates and storesthe biological characteristic image for performing a biometricverification of the user, or when the biological characteristic imagestored in the terminal is used for performing a biometric verificationof the user.

As shown in FIG. 5, FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a method of verifying ausability of a biological characteristic image according to anotheraspect of the present disclosure.

At S501, a biological characteristic image generated by or stored in aterminal is obtained. The biological characteristic image includes adigital watermark. When a biological characteristic image of a user iscollected by a terminal and before the biological characteristic imageis stored, a digital watermark may be embedded in this originalbiological characteristic image of the user that is collected togenerate a biological characteristic image including the digitalwatermark. The digital watermark may be generated based on deviceidentification information and/or user identification information of theterminal.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, a digitalwatermark may be embedded into the biological characteristic image ofthe user collected by the terminal by using a digital watermarkembedding algorithm to generate the biological characteristic image thatincludes the digital watermark. The digital watermark to be embedded maybe generated based on device identification information and/or useridentification information of the terminal. The digital watermark isembedded into the original biological characteristic image using adigital watermark embedding algorithm. The device identificationinformation may be generated based on device information of the terminalusing a Hash algorithm. The device information of the terminal includes:any one or more of a Mobile Equipment Identity, a device/processor type,operating system version information, and a mobile subscriber identityof the terminal. The user identification information may be accountinformation of the user of the terminal, for example, accountinformation (or referred to as a member ID) that is registered andstored in a server when the user of the terminal uses an application(for example, a client application) that provides a biometricverification service.

Method blocks of generating the biological characteristic imageincluding the digital watermark may be referenced to method blocksS201-S203 as shown in FIG. 2, and are not redundantly described herein.

At S502, verification is performed for the digital watermark included inthe biological characteristic image.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, verification maybe performed for the digital watermark included in the biologicalcharacteristic image based on the device identification informationand/or the user identification information of the terminal.

In order to describe a process of verification in more detail, detaileddescriptions may be made with reference to FIG. 6. FIG. 6 is a flowchartillustrating a procedure of performing verification for a digitalwatermark included in a biological characteristic image according to anembodiment of the present disclosure.

At S601, device identification information and/or user identificationinformation of the terminal is obtained.

As described above (i.e., at S202), the device identificationinformation used for generating the digital watermark may be generatedby performing a computation on the device information of the terminalusing a specific Hash encryption algorithm. Therefore, when the deviceidentification information of the terminal is acquired, the deviceinformation of the terminal may be acquired first, and a computation maybe made to the acquired device information using that specific Hashencryption algorithm to generate the device identification informationof the terminal. Alternatively, the device information of the terminalmay be acquired and uploaded to a server. The server performs acomputation on the device information of the terminal using the specificHash algorithm to generate the device identification information of theterminal, and the device identification information of the terminalreturned by the server is acquired. Moreover, the user identificationinformation (for example, a member ID) that is inputted by the user ofthe terminal or that is pre-stored in the terminal may be acquireddirectly from the terminal.

Alternatively, the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal that is stored in theterminal may further be acquired directly.

At S602, the digital watermark is extracted from the biologicalcharacteristic image to obtain the device identification informationand/or user identification information from which the digital watermarkis generated.

The digital watermark included in the biological characteristic image isgenerated based on the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal, and is embedded into theoriginal biological characteristic image using the digital watermarkembedding algorithm. Therefore, the digital watermark may be extractedfrom the biological characteristic image using a digital watermarkextraction algorithm, and the device identification information and/oruser identification information via which the digital watermark isgenerated is acquired from the extracted digital watermark.

At S603, the device identification information and/or useridentification information via which the digital watermark is generatedis compared with the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal.

Specifically, a comparison may be made as to whether the deviceidentification information and/or user identification information viawhich the digital watermark is generated and the device identificationinformation of the terminal and/or the user identification informationof the terminal are identical. If affirmative, a determination may bemade that the device identification information and/or useridentification information via which the digital watermark is generatedmatches with the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal.

At S604, a determination is made that the verification is passed uponsuccessful matching.

If the device identification information and/or user identificationinformation via which the digital watermark is generated is identicalwith the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal, this indicates that thebiological characteristic image is generated using the deviceidentification information and the user identification information ofthe terminal, and thus a determination may be made that the verificationis passed. If the device identification information and/or useridentification information via which the digital watermark is generateddoes not match with the device identification information and/or theuser identification information of the terminal, a determination may bemade that the verification fails.

The verification process is described above with reference to FIG. 6.Back to FIG. 5, a determination is made that the biologicalcharacteristic image is usable in the terminal if the verification issuccessful at S503.

Specifically, if the verification is successful, this indicates that thebiological characteristic image is generated by using the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal. A determination may be made that the biologicalcharacteristic image may be used in the terminal as a sample forperforming a biometric verification. For example, characteristicextraction is performed on the biological characteristic image togenerate a characteristic template for performing an identityverification of the user. If the verification fails, i.e., thebiological characteristic image is not generated by using the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal, this indicates that the biological characteristic imagemay be acquired via other unauthorized means, and the use of thebiological characteristic image in the terminal will be rejected. Inthis way, thereby ensuring that the biological characteristic image canonly be used in the terminal which generates the image for performing anidentity verification of the user, and is not usable in other terminals.Even if the biological characteristic image is acquired through anillegal means, an acquirer still cannot masquerade an identity of theuser or perform real-time authorization or authentication fraud in theserver using the biological characteristic image.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, before S502 isperformed, a method block of detecting whether a digital watermarkexists in the biological characteristic image may further be included. Adigital watermark detection algorithm may be used to detect whether adigital watermark exists in the received biological characteristicimage. If a digital watermark exists in the biological characteristicimage, S502 is performed for extracting and verifying the digitalwatermark. If no digital watermark exists in the biologicalcharacteristic image, a determination is made that the biologicalcharacteristic image is unusable in the terminal.

Another aspect of the present disclosure further provides a terminal ofverifying a usability of a biological characteristic image.

FIG. 7 schematically shows a structural diagram of a terminal ofverifying a usability of a biological characteristic image according toan embodiment of the present disclosure. The terminal 700 includes: anacquisition module 701, a verification module 702, and a determinationmodule 703.

The acquisition module 701 may be used for acquiring a biologicalcharacteristic image generated by or stored in the terminal.

The verification module 702 may be used for verifying a digitalwatermark included in the biological characteristic image.

The determination module 703 may be used for determining that thebiological characteristic image is usable in the terminal uponsuccessful verification.

According to an embodiment of the present disclosure, the digitalwatermark may be generated based on device identification informationand/or user identification information of the terminal.

The device identification information is generated based on the deviceinformation of the terminal using a Hash algorithm. The deviceinformation of the terminal includes: any one or more of a MobileEquipment Identity, a device/processor type, operating system versioninformation and a mobile subscriber identity of the terminal.

According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the verificationmodule 702 may be further used for verifying the digital watermarkincluded in the biological characteristic image based on the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal.

The verification module 702 may further include: an acquisitionsub-module 704, an extraction sub-module 705, a comparison sub-module706, and a determination sub-module 707.

The acquisition sub-module 704 may be used for acquiring the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal.

The extraction sub-module 705 may be used for extracting the digitalwatermark from the biological characteristic image to acquire the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification informationfrom which the digital watermark is generated.

The comparison sub-module 706 may be used for comparing the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification informationfrom which the digital watermark is generated with the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal.

The determination sub-module 707 may be used for determining that theverification is passed upon successful matching.

According to the embodiment of the present disclosure, the terminal 700may further include: a detection module 708. The detection module 708may be used for detecting whether a digital watermark exists in thebiological characteristic image. The determination module may be furtherbe used for determining that the biological characteristic image is notusable in the terminal if no digital watermark exists in the biologicalcharacteristic image.

In an embodiment, the terminal 700 may be implemented as one or morecomputing devices, which may include one or more processors (CPU) 709,an input/output interface 710, a network interface 711, and memory 712.

The memory 712 may include a form of a computer readable media such asvolatile memory, random access memory (RAM) and/or non-volatile memory,such as read-only memory (ROM) or flash RAM. The memory 412 is anexample of a computer readable media.

The memory 712 may include program module 713 and program data 714. Theforegoing modules and/or sub-modules may be included in the memory 712,e.g., program module 713. Details of these modules and sub-modules maybe found in the foregoing description and are therefore not redundantlydescribed herein.

Functions implemented by the terminal of this embodiment basicallycorrespond to the method embodiments shown in FIGS. 5-6. Therefore,those not described in detail in the description of this embodiment maybe referenced to the related descriptions in the foregoing embodiments,and are not redundantly described herein.

It should be further noted that, terms such as “comprise”, “include” orany other variations thereof are meant to cover the non-exclusiveinclusions. The process, method, product or apparatus that includes aseries of elements not only includes those elements, but also includesother elements that are not explicitly listed, or further includeselements that already existed in such process, method, product orapparatus. In a condition without further limitations, an elementdefined by the phrase “include a/an . . . ” does not exclude any othersimilar elements from existing in the process, method, product orapparatus.

One skilled in the art should understand that the embodiments of thepresent disclosure may be provided as a method, a system or a computerprogram product. Therefore, the present disclosure may be implemented asa completely hardware embodiment, a completely software embodiment, oran embodiment which is a combination of software and hardware. Moreover,the present disclosure may be in a form of a computer program productimplemented in one or more computer usable storage media (including, butnot limited to, a magnetic disk storage device, a CD-ROM, an opticalstorage device, and the like) including computer usable program codes.

The above descriptions are merely exemplary embodiments of the presentdisclosure, and are not intended to limit the present disclosure. Forone skilled in the art, the present disclosure may have variousmodifications and variations. Any modifications, equivalentreplacements, improvements or the like made without departing from thespirit and principle of the present disclosure shall be included in theclaim scope of the present disclosure.

1. A method implemented by one or more computing devices, the methodcomprising: receiving a biological characteristic image uploaded by aterminal; verifying a digital watermark included in the biologicalcharacteristic image, the digital watermark being generated based ondevice identification information and/or user identification informationof the terminal; and determining whether the biological characteristicimage is usable based at least in part on a result of the verifying. 2.The method of claim 1, wherein the device identification information isgenerated based on device information of the terminal using a Hashalgorithm.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the device information ofthe terminal comprises one or more of: a Mobile Equipment Identity, adevice/processor type, operating system version information, or a mobilesubscriber identification number of the terminal.
 4. The method of claim1, wherein verifying the digital watermark further comprises verifyingthe digital watermark included in the biological characteristic imagebased on the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein verifying the digital watermark further comprises: acquiring thedevice identification information and/or the user identificationinformation of the terminal; extracting the digital watermark from thebiological characteristic image to acquire device identificationinformation and/or user identification information via which the digitalwatermark is generated; and comparing the device identificationinformation and/or the user identification information via which thedigital watermark is generated with the device identificationinformation and/or the user identification information of the terminal.6. The method of claim 5, further comprising determining that thebiological characteristic image is usable in response to successfulmatching between the device identification information and/or the useridentification information via which the digital watermark is generatedand the device identification information and/or the user identificationinformation of the terminal.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising determining whether the digital watermark exists in thebiological characteristic image prior to verifying the digital watermarkincluded in the biological characteristic image.
 8. The method of claim7, further comprising determining that the biological characteristicimage is unusable in response to determining that no digital watermarkexists in the biological characteristic image.
 9. One or morecomputer-readable media storing executable instructions that, whenexecuted by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors toperform acts comprising: acquiring a biological characteristic imagethat is generated by or stored in a terminal; verifying a digitalwatermark included in the biological characteristic image, the digitalwatermark being generated based on device identification informationand/or user identification information of the terminal; and determiningwhether the biological characteristic image is usable in the terminalbased on a result of the verifying.
 10. The one or morecomputer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the digital watermark isgenerated based on device identification information and/or useridentification information of the terminal.
 11. The one or morecomputer-readable media of claim 9, wherein the device identificationinformation is generated based on device information of the terminalusing a Hash algorithm.
 12. The one or more computer-readable media ofclaim 11, wherein the device information of the terminal comprises oneor more of: a Mobile Equipment Identity, a device/processor type,operating system version information, or a mobile subscriberidentification number of the terminal.
 13. The one or morecomputer-readable media of claim 9, wherein verifying the digitalwatermark further comprises verifying the digital watermark included inthe biological characteristic image based on the device identificationinformation and/or the user identification information of the terminal.14. The one or more computer-readable media of claim 9, whereinverifying the digital watermark further comprises: acquiring the deviceidentification information and/or the user identification information ofthe terminal; extracting the digital watermark from the biologicalcharacteristic image to acquire device identification information and/oruser identification information from which the digital watermark isgenerated; and comparing the device identification information and/orthe user identification information from which the digital watermark isgenerated with the device identification information and/or the useridentification information of the terminal.
 15. The one or morecomputer-readable media of claim 14, the act further comprisingdetermining that the biological characteristic image is usable inresponse to successful matching between the device identificationinformation and/or the user identification information via which thedigital watermark is generated and the device identification informationand/or the user identification information of the terminal.
 16. The oneor more computer-readable media of claim 9, the act further comprisingdetermining whether the digital watermark exists in the biologicalcharacteristic image prior to verifying the digital watermark includedin the biological characteristic image.
 17. The one or morecomputer-readable media of claim 16, the act further comprisingdetermining that the biological characteristic image is unusable in theterminal in response to determining that no digital watermark exists inthe biological characteristic image.
 18. An apparatus comprising: one ormore processors; memory; a receiving module stored in the memory andexecutable by the one or more processors to receive a biologicalcharacteristic image uploaded by a terminal; a verification modulestored in the memory and executable by the one or more processors toverify a digital watermark included in the biological characteristicimage, the digital watermark being generated based on deviceidentification information and/or user identification information of theterminal; and a determination module stored in the memory and executableby the one or more processors to determine that the biologicalcharacteristic image is usable upon successful verification.
 19. Theapparatus of claim 18, further comprising a detection module thatdetects whether the digital watermark exists in the biologicalcharacteristic image, and the determination module is further configuredto determine that the biological characteristic image is unusable whenthe detection module detects that no digital watermark exists in thebiological characteristic image.
 20. The apparatus of claim 18, whereinthe verification module comprises: an acquisition sub-module stored inthe memory and executable by the one or more processors to obtain thedevice identification information and/or the user identificationinformation of the terminal; an extraction sub-module stored in thememory and executable by the one or more processors to extract thedigital watermark from the biological characteristic image to acquirethe device identification information and/or the user identificationinformation that is used for generating the digital watermark; and acomparison sub-module stored in the memory and executable by the one ormore processors to compare the device identification information and/orthe user identification information that is used for generating thedigital watermark with the device identification information and/or theuser identification information of the terminal.